CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Here come da judge … not!

Exclusive: Pat Boone on why 'nice woman who likes her softball' shouldn't be a justice

Pat Boone, descendant of the legendary pioneer Daniel Boone, has been a top-selling recording artist, the star of his own hit TV series, a movie star, a Broadway headliner, and a best-selling author in a career that has spanned half a century. During the classic rock & roll era of the 1950s, he sold more records than any artist except Elvis Presley. To learn more about Pat, please visit his website.

All of us who are old enough to remember the iconic smash comedy show “Laugh-In” will chuckle recalling Sammy Davis Jr., in full judicial garb, sashaying across the screen proclaiming in an infinite variety of ways: “Here come da judge. … Here come da judge. …!”

That was funny, then. But what’s approaching the United States Supreme Court right now is anything but funny. It’s alarming, it’s crazy, it’s illogical, it’s subversive. It can have only one motivation – the weakening of constitutional restraints on a runaway, dictatorial administration.

To be a justice on the highest court in the land, the most honor-bound and powerful court in the world, is a supreme life accomplishment. The responsibilities that come with the position are so enormous, so crucial to the welfare and continuance of our free republic, that only the most experienced and qualified jurists should even be considered.

What should those qualities – and experiences – include? Well, No. 1: How about having been an actual judge before? How about being able to point to even a few weeks on the bench, any bench, anywhere, anytime?

Would any town or municipality, anywhere in America, want a police chief who had never been a policeman? Would you want to be the first patient your new doctor has ever had? Would you want someone working on your car’s faulty brakes who had never driven a car or served anywhere as a mechanic? Do you want someone teaching your grade-school kids who has a record of opposing the traditions and standards you’ve taught them yourself?

At the inception of our government, with its checks and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, Thomas Jefferson warned ominously: “Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so … and their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots” [Sept. 28, 1820, emphasis added]

As I’ve written here before, if Thomas Jefferson himself, after serving his two terms as president, were to appear before a current Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration as a Supreme Court justice, he would undoubtedly be sent packing by “progressive” committee members. His actions as president fly in the face of the ultraliberal, “politically correct” biases held by Democrats and others who have decided our Constitution is inadequate, outdated and “needs changing” to reflect our changing societal values.

President Obama wrote similar notions while a university law student, and has at other times proposed changes he thinks would make our government more responsible for meeting all the people’s needs – which of course would also give the government ultimate power over the people, instead of the people having ultimate power over their government as the Constitution specifies.

So, right now in Washington’s executive chambers, the exultant cry is echoing. “Here come da judge! Hear ye, hear ye, let’s proclaim Elena Kagan a Supreme Court judge! Forget background checks, overlook her written statements, quit the partisan quibbling, and get on with it – we want her on the bench, and we’ve got the votes to put her there!”

But not so fast. Don’t fit her for a black robe and a hairdo for her swearing-in just yet.

An outstanding defender of our Constitution, Judicial Watch, has gone ahead and done the kind of background check that the president, his team and the Senate should have already done and made public. And they’ve presented seven solid reasons Kagan should not be seriously considered, much less confirmed.

Elena Kagan would be the first Supreme Court justice since 1972 to join the high court without any prior experience as a judge.

Her legal experience consists of three years practicing law and a few years clerking in the federal courts, including a stint with Thurgood Marshall, perhaps the most liberal justice in history.

She spent the majority of her career in academia, as a campaign worker for liberal candidates like Michael Dukakis and as a domestic policy aide for President Clinton, even after he admitted to lying under oath.

While serving as dean of the Harvard Law School (one of Obama’s alma maters), Kagan tossed military recruiters off campus, protesting the legally mandated military policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In so doing, she was in violation of federal law (the Solomon Amendment).

She then sought to have the Amendment overturned, but the Supreme Court, on which she now seeks to serve, repudiated her 8-0. Not even liberal Justice Stevens (whom she hopes to replace) agreed with her activist stance.

While at Princeton, Kagan authored a paper expressing sympathy for the plight of the Socialist Party, and Judicial Watch quotes her: “The story is a sad but also chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.”

While at Oxford, in a thesis paper, she endorsed judicial activism: “Perhaps most important, judges will have goals. And because this is so, judges will often try to mold and steer the law in order to promote certain ethical values and achieve certain social ends. Such activity is not necessarily wrong or invalid.”

I’m not a legal expert, but I can read. And when I read what this otherwise nice woman who likes her softball believes a judge, any judge, should be like – in her own words and actions – I know she’s not qualified to serve for the rest of her life on America’s Supreme Court.

I can also tell, as you surely can, why the administration has proposed her and dearly wants her “on their side” as a justice. They are determined, while they have the astonishing power, to drastically change America from the republic our founders established – in which government is “of, by and for the people” – to one in which a socialist oligarchy imposes its “progressive” will on an ignorant, hapless populace, who will pay for it through their noses until they are bankrupt and dependent.